The greatest political triumph of the Friends of Peace was the successful attack on the Orders in Council in 1812. At the outset the attempt to prevent neutrals trading with the enemy had been made in response to Napoleon's proclamation of a European blockade of Great Britain, but it soon became obvious that neither side had found a decisive weapon and that, even if it could be done, winning the war by economic attrition would be a long and slow process. The Orders came to accord rather with the idea of Fortress Britannica, which dominated thinking on the war from 1807 until 1813 and which was most explicit in the fortification of the southern and eastern coasts and in the development of a citizen soldiery. To acquire the greatest possible control of international trade was seen in the context of maintaining Britain's economic strength vis-à-vis the enemy's continental empire. For this reason the Orders were made increasingly flexible and were also persisted in after the French blockade had been greatly relaxed.

The severe recessions in the export industries in 1807–8 and 1811–12, however, powerfully contradicted the assumptions behind this policy. If the Orders antagonised neutrals to the point of war and killed off European demand by letting Britain trade on terms that suited her alone, the economy would sustain some heavy shocks and possibly permanent damage; in the short term, exports would fall away; in the long term, the country's customers would supply themselves from their own industry or other sources. Britain's commercial ascendancy made her doubly vulnerable to any disturbance of the established channels of international trade.